Louie Gohmert Lets The IRS Have It: ‘Ignoring The Constitution’

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert did not hold back in expressing his disdain toward the IRS for failing to cooperate with investigations into the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

“The Internal Revenue Service is the only entity of which I’m aware in the federal government that can ignore the Constitution as part of its job — nobody else gets to ignore the Constitution,” the Republican congressman said Tuesday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing considering the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “But they can take people’s money without due process. They can take their property. They can move in and destroy a business that took a lifetime to build and they have done that.”

While Gohmert conceded that there are “fine and honest” IRS agents, the problem is at the management level, where “rot is occurring.”

Gohmert referenced Koskinen, who faces possible impeachment for his conduct during the congressional inquiry into the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. The IRS chief made statements to Congress that proved to be false about the existence of emails from former IRS director Lois Lerner. Additionally, over 24,000 of Lerner’s emails were destroyed under his watch, despite two congressional subpoenas calling for them to be turned over.

“On June 20, 2014, Mr. Koskinen testified before the Ways and Means Committee stating, ‘Since the start of this investigation, every email has been preserved. Nothing has been lost. Nothing has been destroyed,’” Chaffetz recounted.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, R- Fla., who also testified at the hearing, added, “There really is no dispute about the facts: the IRS destroyed up to 24,000 of Lois Lerner’s emails under two congressional subpoenas, Commissioner Koskinen made several statements in testimony before the Congress that are false, the IRS failed to produce all of the emails it had in its possession, and the IRS failed to do basic due diligence by not looking in obvious places for Lerner’s emails.”

Koskinen refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee sending a written statement instead, which addressed the charge, saying, “The erasure of 422 disaster recovery tapes at Martinsburg, West Virginia, was clearly a failure of the IRS’s document preservation protocols. The IRS accepts responsibility for it, and as detailed in its submissions to Congress, has improved employee training and has taken other measures to minimize the risk that anything like this could ever happen again.”

As to the call for his impeachment, Koskinen wrote the committee member, “While the allegations raised by some Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are serious and relate to acknowledged errors made by the IRS, the Constitution reserves the use of impeachment for ‘treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors.’ None of my actions relating to the issues above, viewed in light of all the facts, come close to that level.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., found IRS chief’s written statement in lieu of appearing before the committee unacceptable. “The witness was invited to come and has delivered us instead a self-serving, written statement. While telling us in that statement he respects the committee, he’s refusing to be here for his own impeachment inquiry. On what basis would we allow unsworn testimony for what should have been a sworn witness under the penalty of perjury?” said Issa.